


Old Scars / Future Hearts

by orphan_account



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Human, Angst, Anxiety Attacks, Anxiety Disorder, Attempted Murder, But He Gets Better, College AU, Depression, Drug Use, Gen, Hank is kind of an asshole, Implied/Referenced Suicide, It's pretty much Riverdale, M/M, Murder, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Abuse, Past Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rating May Change, Sort of? - Freeform, Tags May Change, Trans Character, Trans Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, but gayer
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-28
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-11-06 23:43:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17949419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Connor Stern is twenty-four years old, studying for a PhD in Criminology, and generally just the stereotypical, asocial nerd from every college movie in existence. All he wants is to survive long enough to leave Detroit—and his old life—far behind him.Balancing his anxiety, his classwork, and a group of confusing friends is easier said than done, but Connor is determined not to let the stress get to him.Until things start going to shit.A ghost from his past resurfaces, bringing with him past traumas previously abandoned in the dust of an old world. A mysterious, charming stranger appears out of nowhere, something dark lingering just behind those bright blue eyes. A criminal empire is uncovered, dragging the body of another student with it. If that wasn’t bad enough, Connor’s caught in the middle of it all.And he thought keeping his grades up was difficult.(Fic title from the song Old Scars / Future Hearts by All Time Low)





	1. Wake Up

**Author's Note:**

> So, I took the shambles of a previous fic I wrote by the name of Critical Mistakes and turned it into something more angsty, more tragic, and just generally better.
> 
> Please heed the warnings; this shit might get dark.

_Rule One: Don’t show your fear._

 

Connor schools his expression and tilts his chin upwards in false confidence. The ice in his veins chills him to the bone, a dark rhythm pounding in his chest to pump the fear through his body. The sounds of footsteps join the noise in his head, thundering around him while he stands amidst the chaos and the darkness. He wants to tremble, to scream and run, but he stays, still and silent, pushing his terror underneath layer upon layer of cool numbness.

Neon lights and signs flash in his peripheral, jagged shards of reality breaking away and whistling past his ears with high-pitched screeches. The shadows move and dance, stalking him like a lioness stalks her prey. They taunt him, whispering words of discouragement and painful truths once left behind. There are eyes in the darkness, tainted heartbeats hammering as one until the sound fills his ears and drowns out everything else, even the terrible, terrible whispers. The noises are deafening, yet they form their own twisted sort of dark silence.

_Rule Two: Don’t fight back._

 

He’s never prepared for the first blow. It always comes out of nowhere, a fist curling through the dark mists and slamming into his jaw. He stumbles, but doesn’t make any move to defend himself. Arms snake out of the shadows, locking around his throat and his chest, stealing the air from his lungs and whisking it away. His knees are locked, arms stiff by his side, eyes staring straight ahead.

His attacker pummels him relentlessly, and still he doesn’t make a sound. The blank faces of the shadowy onlookers surround him, trapping him in. He doesn’t try to get away, even when they move inwards and the circle tightens, taking with it his last remaining breath. Black water rushes past his face, leaving him shivering and hugging himself.

The darkness seems to envelop him, shadows and mist gathering around his head to suffocate him into breaking. Bones shatter, skin breaks, blood spills from his wounds. It’s a dizzying array of light and pain, breaking reality into fragments and tearing them from his pitiful grasp until he can’t make sense of his own torture. It’s all too much.

There’s blue liquid pooling on the ground, dripping from his parted lips and the marks in his pale flesh. It smells like gasoline, and it reflects the rainbow of neon flashes in its smooth surface. Connor’s attacker aims a kick at his abdomen, and he sinks to his knees, bright blue and purple staining his clothes. A broken gasp escapes him. He remembers Rule One, and forces his face back to neutral, staring forwards as soft touches grace his shoulders, whispers fill his ears. His attacker wraps an arm around his throat, locking its elbow and pulling Connor’s head against what should have been its chest. Connor holds his breath, watching the swimming colours move within the darkness calmly, ignoring the sounds of his panicked heartbeat in his ears.

He doesn’t struggle, doesn’t try to pry the arm from his neck. He knows what will happen if he does. Never, _ever,_ fight back. It will only make things worse.

_Rule Three: Let him do what he wants with me._

 

The voice that echoes throughout the dark world is painfully familiar. It resonates somewhere deep in Connor’s memories, a reminder of terrible things and poisoned words. It’s not possible for a voice to hurt, but it does. It hurts every single nerve in Connor’s body to hear that voice again, in a place like this. Somehow, it makes the flashes of bright lights more intense, blaring in his ears and resonating around him.

_“Hello, Connor.”_

Connor chokes out a whimper, feeling the pressure on his throat continue to tighten. He needs to stay calm, stay as still as possible. _Don’t show your fear don’t fight back let him do what he wants don’t show him you’re scared it only makes it worse don’t—_

_“It’s been so long, hasn’t it, baby?”_

Connor nods carefully, still staring forwards. A numbness creeps into his mind, probably from lack of oxygen. He feels lightheaded, dizzy with terror and pain.

_“Yes, I haven’t seen you in years. I do miss you, the way you would scream when I beat you. Music to my ears.”_

He nods again, closes his eyes against the blaring lights that appear in his fading vision.

_“I want to see you again, you know? I want to see what you’ve done to yourself. I think you want to see me, too.”_

A jerky shake of his head as he gasps. He’d rather die.

_“But this is all a dream, isn’t it? You think you’re far away from me. You think I won’t be able to find you again, don’t you?”_

The pressure on his throat loosens slightly, letting him wheeze out his reply.

“Y-You’re…gone,” Connor rasps. “I escaped. You’re just—just a nightmare now.”

_“Yes, yes. I’m just a nightmare, but yet I can still hurt you. Every day, you’re still afraid of seeing me in the faces of your friends. You’re terrified, Connor. It’s wonderful.”_

Connor swallows the lump of fear forming in his throat. His eyes are sealed shut, but he can still see the black dots dancing in his vision. He’ll wake up soon, and then everything will be fine. He’ll wake up, and this will all go away, melt into a blur of hazy memories. He just has to wait, to keep hiding his fear, to keep following his rules. The rules helped him in the past, when it was all real, so they have to help him now.

_“You’re still so good, aren’t you? You still let me take over your life, and I’m not even really here. You know what happened, Connor? I made you into myself.”_

Connor shakes his head sluggishly, chest burning from lack of air. He can’t move, can’t see, can’t feel anything other than the hand touching his face and dread that hangs over him. He can feel D—feel the imaginary monster’s presence surrounding him, weighing down on his shoulders like it used to. It always used to feel like he was holding up the weight of the world, the secrets locked deep beneath his skin itching to escape. It’s still all a secret, because Connor never breaks his promises, especially not the ones that keep him safe.

_“I put a little bit of myself in you, every time I’d yell, or you’d disobey a direct order. I thought it was all for nothing, but it looks like I succeeded, huh? You’re afraid of yourself, Connor. You’re afraid of my impact.”_

Connor nods. It’s true. He knows it is.

_“Even now, you know this isn’t even me. This is just **you** , being paranoid. You’ve fabricated a voice in your subconscious, and it’s awfully amusing to watch you fumble and fail to ignore it. To ignore **me**.”_

There’s thousands of stones on his chest.

_“Oh, Connor. How I miss having you nearby. You were so beautiful when you bled for me. You would have done anything to make me happy, wouldn’t you?”_

Flames crawl up his throat, black smoke filling his lungs.

_“Don’t you remember what it was like? I protected you from yourself. If it had just been you, you would have done much worse.”_

The sounds of beeping machinery surround him. Somewhere, distantly, somebody flatlines.

_“You should thank me. You should be grateful. Instead, you run away from the truth. You run away from me, because you want to be the **victim**.”_

People are crying. People are _dying._ He can’t—he can’t open his eyes. His blood is lead, and his head is filled with rocks. Glass digs into his skin, spilling blue blood that shimmers and twists into tendrils, snaking up his body.

_“Do you remember the night, at the hospital? A little boy died because the paramedics went to you first, instead of him. It’s your fault his family was forced to mourn that night, your fault that his fragile body was buried six feet under.”_

He’s leaving. He can feel it.

_“You should have let me take care of you. You shouldn’t have run away. If you’d just stayed, that boy would still be alive.”_

He knows. He knows that. He knows it was all his fault, knows that he caused a child’s suffering. It had appeared in the news, the day after he escaped. He’d cried, guilt tearing him apart from the inside out.

There’s something inside of him now, a darkness clouding his thoughts. Hazily, he wonders if he’s dying, if he’ll even wake up. It doesn’t _feel_ like a dream, not anymore.

_“Leaving so soon, Connor? How pathetic.”_

The pain grows unbearable, his heartbeat stutters in his chest. Finally, there is silence, clogging his ears and filling his head with too many thoughts.

The pressure on his throat lifts, and he collapses under the weight of his guilt.

 

 

Connor wakes up with a gasp, hands immediately flying to his chest as he jolts into a sitting position. He can feel his heart hammering dangerously fast, pulse fluttering beneath his splayed fingers. Something’s wrong. Something’s wrong with him, with his chest, with his heart. It’s broken—he’s broken, he’s not working properly. He can’t breathe, he can’t breathe and he’s drowning and he’s falling and he can’t see he can’t breathe and nobody can save him and nobody _wants_ to save him he’s bad he’s terrible and—

“Jesus fucking Christ!” Gavin cries.

Connor snaps his head sideways, eyes wide. His roommate is sitting up on his own bed, staring, as Connor struggles to breathe. Crooked features contorted into what looks to simultaneously be a snarl and an expression of muted concern.

“You’re fucking terrifying, you know that?”

Connor blinks slowly, lets his hands fall to his lap. Slowly, he gets his heart to stop hurting so much, gets his lungs to take air in properly. He’s—he’s awake now. The monster in his head has retreated until the next time he closes his eyes.

“What…?”

Gavin runs a hand over his face and sighs, heavily, “you seriously looked like you were havin’ a fucking seizure or some shit, Connor. Woke me up with your flailing, and then you weren’t breathing properly. Sounded like a fucking zombie.”

_Oh._

“I’m sorry for waking you,” Connor breathes, voice shaking more than he wants it to be, “I didn’t mean to scare you, it was just—it was just a dream.”

It’s always just a dream. Nothing anybody else should worry about. It’s none of their concern. It shouldn’t even be any of _Connor’s_ concern, but he and his traitorous mind can’t help but be afraid of himself.

“It was a goddamn night terror, is what it was.” Gavin snaps, “you need to get that shit fixed by a professional, Connor. I’m sick of waking up and seeing you look like you’ve just seen a goddamn ghost.”

Connor nods and brings his hands back to his chest, staring down at the grey blanket covering his legs, “I know. I’m sorry.”

He _does_ need to be fixed, but he doesn’t know how to make it happen. He’s tried everything, but nothing ever works. He hasn’t been to a proper therapist for what feels like years.

“God, fuckin—” Gavin cups his hands over his mouth and exhales, “you’re sorry. Of _course_ you’re fucking sorry. Goddamnit, Connor, I was trying to say I’m fucking worried about you!”

“You don’t need—”

“Yeah, I obviously _do_ need to worry about you! Every morning, you wake up with this miserable look on your face, and every night you start having panic attacks in your fucking sleep! It’s no more fun for me than it is for you, I’ll have you know. I thought you said you had meds for this shit!”

“I do,” Connor says quietly, “I do. They don’t—they don’t work.”

“Get new ones,” Gavin tells him sharply, shaking his head. He stretches his arms above his head and shoots Connor a glare, “I guess there’s no point in trying to sleep in today, huh?”

Connor winces, “sorry,” he says again. He doesn’t want to get out of bed anymore. He’s exhausted, too exhausted to care that he’ll miss out on class if he doesn’t move soon. There’s nothing there for him, anyway. Nobody would miss him.

“Jesus, you’re shaking.” Gavin sighs, voice softening by a degree. He doesn’t sound angry, just…tired. He sounds almost as tired as Connor feels, which only makes his guilt grow. “You need me to do anything? Get—get somebody? Call Simon, maybe?”

Judging by the discomfort in his tone, he doesn’t really want to do either of those things, and Connor doesn’t want his roommate to feel any more uncomfortable around him than he already does.

“No,” Connor tells him with a jerky shake of his head and a weak exhale. He bundles his hands to his chest in an effort to stop their shaking, “no, I’ll be fine. I just need—I just need, um, a moment.”

Gavin nods awkwardly, before climbing out of his bed and rummaging around in his closet. “Okay. I, uh, before you freaked out I was gonna let you know that North dropped by last night, looking for you.”

“Oh.” Connor says, quite dumbly. He fidgets with the hem of his shirt, “did she say why?”

“Nope. Just said it was important.” Gavin shrugs, a shirt and a pair of pants hanging in his grip. “I’m gonna go shower. When I come back, you’d better have fucking taken your meds. I’m not dealing with what’ll happen if you don’t.”

“Gavin—”

“ _Connor.”_ Gavin gives him a glare as stern as he can manage, which is a mighty feat for somebody as anti-discipline as he, “I swear to God, Connor. Don’t make me force that shit down your throat.”

Connor nods slowly, sighing. He hears the door click shut as Gavin leaves for the shower, and then he sluggishly forces himself out of his bed. His shaking hands tug the comforter back over his mattress until it looks presentable enough, smoothing down the leftover crinkles in the fabric. His legs are unsteady as he staggers over to where he keeps his anxiety medication, hands still trembling terribly and heart not yet completely calmed down.

He opens his bedside drawer and extracts the little orange bottle that’s _supposed_ keep him from panicking every time he steps out of his dorm. As always, he reads the label twice over, paranoia getting the better of him.

 

_Buspirone: 15 mg_

_Prescription given for the treatment of Generalised Anxiety Disorder_

_Prescription recipient: Stern, Connor_

_To be taken orally twice a day_

Good. Good. Connor’s fumbling fingers manage to extract one of the little white pills. He stares down at it for a moment, a tiny dot of white almost blending into his deathly pale skin. Sometimes, he thinks he looks a bit like a corpse that had been thrown into a river and rotted there for years. It’s probably because he barely leaves his dorm for anything other than classes, and that’s probably because of his anxiety, and _that’s_ probably because he doesn’t know how to socialise which is the result of never going outside which is the result of his anxiety which—

It’s a vicious cycle.

Before he can overthink anything, he places the pill on the back of his tongue and dry-swallows it, coughing as it scratches against the back of his throat. He rests his hands on the edges of his bedside drawer, head hanging between his shoulders as he takes a gulping breath of air to steady himself. He always tends to panic whenever he doesn’t see the effects of his medication take place immediately, which is exactly the _opposite_ of what he wants to happen.

Slowly, Connor raises his head and straightens his back, moving to open the curtains in the centre of the wall. He pulls the dusty fabric away and lets the dull sunlight illuminate the room. It doesn’t do much, being that the sky is filled with angry grey stormclouds and the sun can barely break through the layers of pollution that’s undoubtedly coming from the city, but at least the room isn’t suffocating anymore. He stares out over the campus for a short moment, watching the first students start milling around as the first classes of the day begin. It looks so peaceful, from up on the third floor of the dormitory building, but Connor knows that when you’re actually down there, it’s a fucking hellscape.

He evens out his breathing and forces himself over to his own, tiny closet. The decrepit piece of furniture has certainly seen better days, covered in dents and scratches left by its previous owner. When he’d arrived here, Connor had tried his best to fix it, but there’s only so much duct tape and wood polish can do before there’s nothing left to fix.

He doesn’t pay much attention to what clothing he takes. As long as it keeps out the chill from the wind and hides his scars, he’s fine with it. Black and grey monochrome, as always. Colour would make him stand out, and that’s the last thing he wants to do.

He locks the door and stares at himself in Gavin’s mirror—because of _course_ Gavin owns a mirror. His tired, dull eyes stare back at him, the dark bags beneath his eyelids more pronounced than ever. Slowly, he traces his jawline with shaky fingers, watching himself move in the reflection. He looks…weak. He looks sick, like somebody with a terrible illness that they’ve neglected for too long. There are scars on his neck, and one on his right temple, in the shape of a half-moon. He used to hide them with makeup, or turtleneck sweaters, or anything else he could get his hands on, but recently he has been trying to let that go.

“I’m safe,” he chants to himself, quietly. According to his old therapist, a verbal reassurance can be more helpful than just saying it in his mind. It’s never shown itself to work, yet, but he won’t stop now. “They’re just memories.”

Nobody ever told him to add that last part, but he likes the reminder all the same. He turns away from the mirror and slips out of his pyjamas and into his other clothes, pointedly _not_ glancing at his reflection until he’s finished, no matter how tempting his twisted mind makes it seem.

When he’s dressed for the day, he spends a good five minutes trying to make himself look somewhat presentable. As always, his messy hair refuses to cooperate, no matter how hard he tugs at it. He _does_ manage  to make himself look less like a sad mop, so he has to count that as a success. He smooths down the front of his grey sweater, finding all the imperfections in the cotton and tugging at the loose threads nervously, chewing his lower lip.

He moves to stare out the window, trying to see if he can spot North or Simon down on campus. It doesn’t look like many people have found the motivation to crawl out of their beds, either. There’s only a few dozen people that Connor can tell, and even from up in his dorm, he can tell they’re all miserable. Sometimes he wonders if his whole generation got stuck with seasonal depression or something along those lines. It’s a wonder there’s anybody outside at all, with the grey, dreariness of the sky and the obvious chill to the air. Now that he thinks about it, Connor can’t remember the last time it was actually sunny, here. He wonders whether there’s something wrong with the atmosphere.

He’s startled out of his thoughts by a loud pounding on the door.

“Are you done yet, prick?”

Connor sighs quietly. Gavin’s kindness can only last so long before he’s back to his normal, aggressive self. He opens the door and his roommate pushes past him, wearing nothing but a towel around his waist. He’s still damp, mussed hair dripping water onto the floor—which Connor tries his best not to fret about. It’s just water.

“You’re not changed,” Connor observes, after getting over his initial shock. Gavin glares at him.

“No fucking shit, Sherlock.” He snaps, then exhales heavily and continues in a less angry tone, “I’m looking for my fucking ring. Must’ve left it in here.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Gavin grumbles something before ransacking his side of the room. Connor watches his agitated roommate rummage through all of his storage spaces and even deep in the back of his closet—which is a feat in itself. His low muttering grows more and more nervous every second that he can’t find the ring.

Connor hasn’t seen Gavin’s treasured ring up close, but he knows it’s a simple, dark band of steel. It usually rests on Gavin’s middle finger of his right hand, and Connor’s pretty sure it has some special meaning behind it, being that Gavin looks so distraught about not knowing where it is. Connor has never seen his roommate without the simple piece of jewellery adorning his hand.

“Where the fuck is it?” Gavin mumbles to himself. Connor can hear the quiet note of panic in his voice. “Where the _fuck?”_

“Do you—” Connor shrinks away as Gavin’s gaze lands on him, “—do you want help?”

Gavin contemplates for a moment, then shakes his head, “nah, it’s—it’s fine. Just a stupid ring, nothing for you to worry about. God knows you already worry ‘bout too much anyway.”

Connor nods, then stands awkwardly in silence while Gavin continues to fumble around in the room. He wrings his hands together, picking at his fingernails, which are close to non-existent at this point.

He glances at the digital clock on his bedside drawer. It reads 9:45. North will be waiting for him with the others at their usual spot. He doesn’t want to keep her waiting.

“I should go,” Connor says, needlessly. He silently curses himself for being so awkward. “Um, I hope you find your ring.”

Gavin doesn’t reply. Connor nods to himself and leaves the room, opening the door in a jerky movement. He closes it behind him with a quiet click, then slumps against it and runs a hand through his hair, takes a shuddering breath.

He wishes he wasn’t like this.

God, he wants to be able to do the same things as everybody else. He wants to be able to talk to people, to be able to talk to _Gavin_ without having a minor freakout. It’s unfair, it’s fucking unfair and Connor wishes it wasn’t like this. Already, his hands are shaking again and his breathing is speeding up in anticipation of an anxiety attack, and it’s all because he’s such an idiot, because he can’t even handle his memories, can’t even handle his fucking _roommate._ Niles was right, college was a terrible idea. Connor should have _listened,_ he should never have come here—

_Stop it. Don’t think like that, Connor._

The voice that says it sounds a lot like Simon, calm and collected, kind and concerned. Connor wonders whether it’s a subconscious decision on his part, or something that happened over time. Either way, hearing Simon’s voice calms him back down.

He takes a deep breath, reminding himself that he’d already taken his meds, which means that he isn’t about to have a panic attack. Slowly, he unfolds and peels himself off the door, glancing down the empty, decrepit-looking hallway once, twice, until he’s sure he won’t have to go through any unnecessary social interactions on his journey to North.

He shakes his head to rid himself of the lingering fear, and starts walking.


	2. True Friends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A brief TW for a flashback of a traumatic experience and some negative self-image
> 
>  
> 
> Mood music for this chapter: The Warmth - Koda

_Safe._

Connor doesn’t know what the word means, anymore. He knows, realistically, that he is safe on campus. He knows that the school would never let the monster find him here. He knows that he’s probably the safest that he’s ever been, living here with Gavin.

He also knows that he doesn’t _feel_ safe.

The constant thundering of his heartbeat in his frail chest never leaves him. The fear circling his mind stays with him, even if the logical part of his brain is aware that he’s far away from danger. He still sees shapes in shadows, still hears whispering in his ears, still flinches whenever somebody near him raises their voice. There’s always an underlying problem, an anxiety weighing on his shaking shoulders, even if he knows that there shouldn’t be. There hadn’t been a single time in the past two years that he had truly felt safe, or even truly believed that he was actually out of the darkness.

It’s stupid, he knows. He just can’t make himself believe that he’s okay, because he knows there’s no way it can possibly be true. If he’s okay, then everything that had led up to this would have been nothing. If he’s okay, then his traumas would all be exaggerated and made-up.

And he knows that it was all real. It has to have been real. It all _felt_ so real. It hurts to remember, but sometimes remembering is better than constantly running away, better than doubting it all whenever he feels better.

He latches onto his pain, his trauma, afraid that it will be swept away in the torrent. He holds it close to his chest, cradles it and feeds it, just so he knows that he’s real.

He wonders if he’s really as broken as everybody else thinks.

He ponders this as he walks through the misty world outside. The grey skies loom above, clouds darkening in anticipation of a storm. The grass is wet, Connor can see droplets of water rolling down the dull green blades, leftover dew from the prior night mixed with the water from the still-running garden sprinklers. Even the red and yellow of the trees seem muted and dreary, lack of colour casting everything in a dark, frightening shadow. Connor knows that there are other people out today, but he feels more isolated than he probably should, as though the whole school had been abandoned overnight. He can’t even hear their echoing conversations anymore.

There’s a distinct chill to the air. It signifies the approaching winter, the turning of the seasons. Connor pulls his oversized grey cardigan tighter around his body, watching yet another dead leaf fall from its tree. A pigeon stares him down from its perch on a bench, black eyes all too reminiscent of the creatures from Connor’s nightmares. He turns his gaze away with a shake of his head, rubbing his hands together in an attempt to warm himself. He walks down the path that’s situated next to the tall brick wall encircling campus, feeling leaves crunch under his feet as he trudges through the fog. There’s something calming about being enveloped by thick mists, something comforting in the feeling of being surrounded by compressed air. It’s sort of like being wrapped in a heavy, slightly damp blanket, as though nature is offering a weak embrace to compensate for the terrible world he finds himself inhabiting. A relief, or an apology of sorts.

In reality, it’s just precipitation, hinting at darker, stormier times ahead.

Connor startles as the distinctive siren of a police vehicle breaks the gloomy silence. He stops walking, casts his gaze out to the road next to campus only to see a fleet of police cars speeding down towards the outskirts of the city. There’s four—no, five of them. A lot more than what Connor usually sees whenever something’s happened overnight, like the ever-present thievery and drug dealing. Bright blue and red lights flash past, momentarily illuminating the grey path with memories. His heart stutters weakly and his breath hitches.

The meds muffle it. He’s seeing things through a glazed-over window, looking through thick, murky water, but it’s still there. He can still feel it, itching in the back of his skull, clambering into every shadow that crawls into his vision.

A sharp pain shoots through his head as the sounds of the sirens fill his mind, drowning out any logical thoughts that attempt to mediate the situation with their facts.

_Glass splinters under his body. Blood stains the floor. Somebody is yelling. Hands reach out, dragging him by the shoulders through the door. Panicked shouting fills his ears, vision blocked by the lights of the emergency vehicles. Red. Red. Everything is red. Until it’s not. Until it’s purple, blood mixing with the blue lights of the police vehicles and the paramedics._

_He’d failed. They’re taking him away. His boyfriend is going to be so angry when he gets home and sees him gone. He struggles weakly, only to be stopped by the pain blossoming in his chest. He can’t breathe. It hurts too much. Blaring noises and warnings cloud his mind, chasing away any hint of composure that he has left._

_He sobs weakly as the sight of his—their—the house spins away from his trembling grasp, and the last thread anchoring him to consciousness snaps._

As the sirens grow quieter, Connor becomes aware that he’s kneeling on the ground, hands wrapped around his head. His heart races in his chest as the flashback fades into the white noise of his mind, and he slowly pushes himself to a stand. He shakes his head and raises a hand to his chest. The sirens are always the things to trigger it, the loud ringing that stays in his ears for hours afterwards echoes in his head and keeps the fear tethered closely. It’s always a reminder of that night, the night that the world shattered around him.

It’s stupid. He’d taken his meds, done everything he could to prevent a panic attack, yet he’s still having trouble breathing as he comes back to himself. He blames it on the thick air and keeps walking on shaking legs, trying his best not to think about anything at all.

It works.

He puts one leg in front of the other, focusing on his footsteps and his footsteps alone. There’s no time for flashbacks, no time for anxiety to resurface from underneath the drugs that are supposed to keep it at bay, no time for his fear to outweigh his determination. Unhealthy as it may be, it works.

There’s a dead tree on the edge of campus. It’s been dead for longer than Connor has inhabited the school, gnarled branches reaching fruitlessly up towards the sun, trying to bring any semblance of life that may have coursed through its roots in its past. North likes to call her little meetings at the base of the tree’s blackened trunk, which she says is because it’s as dark and mysterious as what they do. Connor thinks it’s because she can’t handle their allocated space in the library, but he knows that she will never admit it, and he figures that it’s fair. If he can’t handle loud noises and crowds, then North is allowed to not be able to handle quiet and confinement. They’re two sides of the same coin, both suffering in their own ways, both relying on each other for comfort.

At least North has a viable reason for her fears. Connor is always doubting his own.

He’s the first to arrive at their tree. It looms above him, and he cowers beneath it. Something behind him snaps a twig, causing him to flinch and glance around nervously. The noises of nature are always foreboding, even if it’s the middle of spring and everything looks happy. There’s never a quiet moment, never something around to soothe Connor’s eternally frayed nerves. He stays cooped up in his dorm, and he rarely leaves. A side-effect of his anxiety, or just a coping mechanism? Without his therapist, he’ll never know.

Connor leans against the peeling bark of the tree’s trunk, running his to-do lists through his mind as he waits for North and Simon to find him. He fidgets idly, fingers tracing the lines in dead wood while he focuses on the words nailed to the front of his mind.

_Criminology essay due at the end of the week. Simon’s birthday is next Friday. I need to refill my prescription beforehand, just in case. Nobody wants me ruining everything. Josh offered to let me run a column in his newspaper. I should follow up on that._

He lets himself linger on that last thought. It would be…nice, to be able to put his writing somewhere other than the notes app on his phone. Josh was kind to offer, even though there are certainly better options than Connor’s little excerpts.

He’s a hobbyist writer, really. It was never something he would take further than something he did for fun, but he wouldn’t mind having people other than himself reading it. His biggest interest is his Criminology studies, just because it’s the only thing Amanda would approve of, yet he’d always had a lingering curiosity regarding literacy and how authors are able to relay their imaginations through the written word. It’s fascinating, and he hopes to one day be able to reach that level of skill. It may not be important for his studies, or even his future, but he wants to have _one thing_ that is his own. Be it as small as a column in Josh’s newspaper, or a trilogy of crime novels, he wants to have something of his own, something he has nurtured and slaved over for years in order to put it out in the world.

It’s really the only dream he has left, and it’s a stupid one.

Connor is broken out of his thoughts by the sounds of footsteps, the crackle of dried leaves underfoot and the tell-tale sound of pebbles being displaced. There’s no mistaking the stutter of his heartbeat as he registers a presence beside him, the worry clawing its way up his throat and working its way back to the front of his mind.

He looks up, and blue eyes stare back at him.

“Hey,” Simon greets. His voice, quiet as always, holds no pity, no forced smile, no false semblance of happiness. It’s just a voice, soft-spoken, yes, but not condescending like most. He stands with his hands in his pockets, his expression open and vulnerable. There has always been something comforting about Simon’s easily-read facial features, the fact that Connor knows what he’s feeling without having to make several wrong guesses.

“Hi,” Connor replies, relief washing over him at the sight of his friend. His own voice is also quiet, but in a different, untrustworthy sort of way. “Is—is North with you?”

“She’s being held up,” Simon says, a smile in his eyes, “but she’ll be here soon. I wanted to chat with you anyway, ask how you’ve been holding up. This time of year is always tough.”

_It’s always a reminder of all your bullshit,_ is what he is too polite to say. Connor nods absently, agreeing with both statements equally.

“I’m okay,” he murmurs with a strained smile. It’s his usual, go-to reply for questions like that, because he doesn’t know how to answer truthfully. Will anybody actually want to hear about his mental state? Will anybody stand around to listen? He never knows, and he’s too scared to find it out himself.

Simon knows this, of course. He can see through Connor’s empty smiles and hollow promises.

“Are you sure?” Simon pries. He steps closer, just close enough to skirt the edge of Connor’s usual boundaries, but not close enough to cross the line. It would be threatening if it were anybody else, but Simon is different. Simon is gentle. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to hide anything from me, Connor.”

Connor exhales shakily, nodding. He fixes his gaze on the faux fur trim of Simon’s coat. “I know,” he says, “I know—I appreciate it.”

He doesn’t, however, elaborate on his feelings, and Simon doesn’t press any further. That’s what Connor likes about Simon most, the fact that he knows when to stop asking questions, knows when not to cross any invisible thresholds. Knowing that Connor can rely on Simon to help him carry his burdens, whilst also being aware that he is under no obligation to share any of them, is reassuring.

“You cut your hair,” Connor says to change the subject. Indeed, Simon’s sandy blond hair is shorter than it was last week, styled in a more relaxed sort of way than the last slicked-back look he had worn for the past year. “It looks nice.”

Connor doesn’t miss the brief flush of red that colours his friend’s cheeks, the way his eyes widen in surprise and his shoulders raise to his ears. Simon is terrible at receiving compliments, to the point where it rivals Connor’s aversion to them. He reaches a hand up to rub at the back of his neck, smiling in a rueful sort of way.

“Yeah, I—I thought it was time for a change, y’know? The preppy look didn’t suit me.”

“You look—”

_You look like your brother,_ his mind helpfully supplies.

“—younger,” is what he says instead, tilting his head to the side. “I like it.”

Simon ducks his head to hide his smile, “thanks.”

A short silence. Connor feels as though he’s failed at something, but he doesn’t know what.

“Gavin told me that North was looking for me last night,” Connor voices, “do you know why?”

Simon shakes his head, “nope,” he says, then continues hastily, “I wouldn’t worry about it, though. She’ll explain it all when she gets here. It’s probably nothing too important.” He pauses, and Connor can hear the gears in his head turning as he struggles to think about what to say, “how _is_ living with Gavin? Is he as terrible as I think he is?”

It’s a joke, but Connor can still sense the slightest hint of genuine concern in his friend’s voice. It makes something spark in his chest cavity. “Gavin—Gavin’s fine. We don’t talk much, but it’s better than being alone all the time.”

“I still feel bad that you couldn’t stay with me,” Simon tells him, “it’d be nice to have a roommate.”

“You’re not living with Markus?”

Simon sighs heavily, “no. No, I’m not.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Simon waves him off, “it would just make things awkward, anyway. Markus is on and off, hot and cold, y’know? Sometimes he’s the person I want to spend the rest of my life with, and sometimes he’s…sometimes he’s not.”

Connor doesn’t often speak to Markus. His violently changing moods can be…overwhelming, at times. Besides, Simon and North are really the only friends he feels comfortable around in the first place. Simon is easy to read, and North’s bluntness is favourable over Josh’s confusion and Markus’ quiet condescension. There’s always been something off about Connor’s interactions with other people, even if they’re on friendly terms. Markus is…Markus is his friend, he supposes, but they rarely speak without Simon mediating.

It has something to do with him and his awkwardness, he knows. Markus can’t stand to be around him. Connor doesn’t blame him; he can’t stand being around himself either.

“But that doesn’t matter,” Simon continues. The smile that he forces over his face looks more like a grimace, which Connor can relate to. “It’s not like we’re under any pressure to settle down. We’ve got our whole lives ahead of us, right? So I figure, why stress about all of this? Things will happen when they need to happen.”

“I wish I shared your optimism.”

“Hey, we’re all still here, aren’t we? I don’t think you need to be optimistic if you can accept that you’re still alive.”

_You’re still alive._

He repeats it to himself a few times, just to make sure.

Connor nods slowly, “I suppose that’s…a nice way of looking at things.”

Simon’s next smile is softer but more genuine than the last, and he reaches out to clasp Connor’s shoulder, “now I know you’re getting better; you’re agreeing with me.”

Connor opens his mouth to reply but is interrupted by yet another familiar voice.

“I’m so sorry I’m late!” North says as she skids to a stop, an arms-length away from Connor and Simon. Her hair is tucked underneath the dark red beanie on her head, her eyes are wide and she has a bright blue binder clasped in her hands. She looks frazzled, as always. “God, I’m so, _so_ sorry!”

It’s funny. North’s seemingly endless energy and loud personality should make Connor uncomfortable, but they don’t. If anything, the familiarity of her chaotic energies and her constant state of _‘did I leave the oven on or am I just going crazy?’,_ is soothing, in a way that Connor doesn’t quite understand. She balances out Simon’s calm and shares the burden of Connor’s anxiety, but she still functions as her own person.

“Don’t worry about it,” Simon reassures her, patting her shoulder. “You didn’t miss anything.”

“Oh thank _God,”_ North breathes. She grins crookedly at Connor and mimes wiping sweat from her brow, despite it being much too cold to begin sweating in the first place. “So, I was looking for you last night.”

“Gavin told me,” Connor says. “You said it was important, right?”

He can’t quite keep the anxiousness from his voice.

North nods empathetically, tucking a strand of loose red hair behind her ear. “Yeah. I heard from Josh that he wants you to write something for his newspaper, and I figured you’d want something actually interesting to write about. I know you like to, um, vent? You like to vent through your writing, don’t you? Write about dark stuff to get your feelings out of your head?”

Is that what he does? He knows that most of the things he writes down are quite…bleak, but he’s not sure whether it’s a decision on his part to help him cope, or whether his imagination is incapable of thinking up anything remotely colourful or happy.

“I—I guess,” Connor shifts uncomfortably, “I don’t…I don’t really know what I like to do.”

Simon tilts his head but stays silent, watching North speak with fondness in his gaze.

“Well, I thought you could maybe take a look at this,” North tells him, thrusting the blue binder into his arms, “hear me out, okay? That binder contains a bunch of old cold-cases from this side of the city. Like, a bunch of unsolved murders and human trafficking and stuff. I found as much information as I could at the old library, and I also checked with some of the Law kids. They all said that shady things have been going unnoticed or unsolved around here for a really long time, like, ever since 2021.”

Connor looks down at the binder. It’s almost bursting with the number of documents held inside of it.

“And I figured, you’re a criminology student. You’re interested in police work and detection and things like that. I thought you could look into the most interesting cases in there and, like, explain them in Josh’s newspaper?” North shrugs. Her hands lace together nervously. “I dunno. I like reading outside perspectives on stuff like this, and your perspective on the world is gonna be a lot different to mine, or Simon’s, or even Josh’s. You don’t have to, of course, but I thought it’d be worth a try, and it might help you to sort out…your…feelings…or whatever.”

She smiles. Connor feels a pressure in his chest.

“I—”

“And hey, it might open up some more opportunities for you. Last week you told us you wanted to have more of an impact, and this’ll give you just that. An impact.”

Connor glances fleetingly at Simon.

“I think you should at least try,” Simon tells him. “It might be great, or it might suck. Either way, you’ve done something productive.”

Connor nods, slowly and uncertainly. “I…I suppose it’s a good idea. They’re all cold cases?”

“Yeah,” North says, “there are also some that were never actually reported to the police, but people found out about it later. Just loads of shady shit going on.”

“Why weren’t the police notified?”

North shrugs, “I don’t know. You might actually be able to figure some stuff out or something, but it’s probably just little things that don’t matter too much.” She pauses, “just…think about it, okay? I think it’ll be good for you.”

He knows it’s probably a good idea to have something other than studying to occupy him in his downtime. It might even help with some of the overcrowding in his mind, let him straighten out his chaotic thoughts. He also knows that it will mean speaking to Josh more often, which usually means seeing Markus, too, and he knows how draining that will probably end up being. It’s hard for him to decide, hard for him to know which option will benefit him more.

But, then again, it would make his friends happy, if he were to accept. North is obviously making an effort to get Connor out of his comfort zone, and there’s a muted excitement in Simon’s eyes at the thought. Josh needs somebody to help him out, doesn’t he? Connor could be that person, he could make people happy. He could stop being a failure for a second and make other people’s lives easier.

“I’ll look at the files later,” Connor makes his decision, watching North’s face light up with his acceptance. “Thank you, North.”

North beams. “Great! That’s great!” She bounces on the heels of her feet for a second before shivering and pulling her puffy black jacket tighter around her torso. “You guys want to go get a coffee or something? It’s way too cold to stay out here any longer.”

Simon nods, “that’s a good idea. Winter keeps coming earlier and earlier every year. Soon enough we’ll all be frozen.” He pats Connor’s arm, “you want to come with us and get out of this blizzard?”

Connor wants to point out that it’s not, in fact, a blizzard, and there’s another two weeks until winter actually hits, but instead he just nods helplessly, “um, sure.”

Simon smiles at him. It’s soft, dispelling the shadows around them and bringing colour back to the world for a moment. Tendrils of warmth lock around Connor’s chest.

Connor wishes he could hold onto that warmth forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you for reading! Comments and kudos are the best thing you could possibly give to me


	3. Smoke

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for a few mentions of a past suicide attempt on Connor's behalf (it's very brief, and not exceedingly graphic) as well as mentions of a double-suicide. There's also a brief contemplation of self-harm. Underlying anxiety and anxious thoughts, and some mild self-hatred and belief of being a bad person.
> 
> (don't smoke, kiddos)
> 
> Mood music for this chapter: Sweeter the Sound - The Empty House Band

The sun is setting, casting its warm orange glow across the campus’ grounds. Stars are barely visible behind dark clouds, the deep indigo of the sky fractured by dark grey and muted brown plumes of pollution in the air. The sounds of people going about their business have long since faded, leaving the world in an ethereal state of calm silence. A numb sort of silence, the kind of silence that crawls into your skull and eats away at your thoughts until there’s nothing left in the world to make a sound.

Nothing, that is, except Gavin.

“It’s still stupid that we’ve not been caught up here yet,” Gavin says, smoke billowing from his parted lips as he stares out over the campus. “I mean, it’s fucking great, but the monitors are really slacking off.”

Connor nods, leaning against the railing that winds around the rooftop. He stares blankly out at the horizon, numbness creeping into his mind, “so much for vigilance.”

He raises his own cigarette to his mouth and inhales, holding the smoke in his lungs for one, two, three seconds before exhaling, watching it twist in the air and disperse into the atmosphere. The familiar itching feeling that comes from not having nicotine in his system leaves as quickly as it comes, an odd sense of calm numbness resting in its wake.

He and Gavin rarely talk outside of their studies and these little…sessions. They both study criminology and law, and they’re certainly not strangers to one another, but they’re not friends. Not really. The only times they manage to hold a conversation without breaking off awkwardly is when they sneak onto the roof to smoke as the sun sets. It’s when Gavin’s least bristly and defensive, and when Connor can relax enough not to crawl into his shell when prompted. It’s really the only time either of them sees each other for who they really are, without their individual defence mechanisms in place.

It had become some sort of tradition, after Connor had come up to get away from the rest of the world and found Gavin standing with his arms crossed, a cigarette sticking out of his crooked mouth. Connor had joined him, needing something to distract him from the whirling abyss of shadows in his mind.

Terrible as it may be, the smoking helps him cope. He can get away from everything, hide away on the rooftop, in the familiar presence of his roommate. They can talk for an hour about nothing in particular, or they can stand in silence, drinking in the dying light of the sun as smoke twists around them. Usually, it’s the latter, but today seems like a conversation day.

“I think the whole thing about this school being some fucking haven for smart kids or whatever is total bullshit,” Gavin’s eyes narrow, and he shakes his head, “honestly. Who the fuck expects a bunch of ‘gifted’ people from shitty backgrounds to act like angels?”

“They overestimate us.”

‘They’ being Detroit’s council. The Savant School was supposed to give opportunities to those who, under other circumstances, wouldn’t have been able to get a proper college education. It’s a nice idea, one that about every other city in the state had already tried to integrate into their systems, but a poor execution. It’s falling to pieces, ravaged by drugs, and the professors don’t give a shit about their jobs. Connor wonders if Elijah Kamski, the school’s founder, even remembers that it exists. It certainly doesn’t seem like it.

He remembers being given a scholarship while he was still drifting from shelter to shelter, too afraid to stay in one place for too long, too ashamed to return home to Amanda. It had been like a fresh breath of air, an escape from the dark hole he’d dug himself into. He has a permanent place to stay, and he never has to worry about not having food to eat or not having money for his T shots. He’s still grateful for it, he still wonders what might have happened to him if he hadn’t been given a place here to stay and continue his education.

Probably nothing good.

“Wonder if they’ll _ever_ find us up here,” Gavin muses to himself, taking another slow drag of his cigarette. “It’s not like anybody ever checks the roof. Nobody else is stupid enough to come up here, not after…”

He trails off, a hint of hesitation to his voice. Connor glances sideways at him, noticing the way that Gavin’s shoulders slump as he leans on the cold railing, still wet from precipitation and the light rainfall that had persisted on and off all day.

“…not after all _that shit._ ”

Connor hums his agreement. He’d been lucky enough not to be around when two of the students jumped from the roof of their building together, hand in hand. Girlfriends, they’d been. Both left a message to the headmaster at the time, claiming that they were ready to ‘ascend’, whatever that was supposed to mean. The roof had been announced strictly off limits afterwards, but security is scarce, and Connor doubts anybody really cares. It’s just to get the press off of the higher-ups’ backs, he knows. Who gives a shit if a few troubled college students kill themselves every five years? Happens everywhere, they’d say. A part of life, they’d say.

“You think they…do you think they found what they were looking for? Traci and her girl?”

Connor blinks, startled by the existential question. He pauses, sucking in another lungful of smoke and letting it out before replying hesitantly.

“I…I don’t know.”

Gavin’s nod melts into a thoughtful shake of his head. He smiles ruefully, “I guess nobody’ll ever know, huh? It’s 2032, and we still don’t know what happens after we die. When I was a kid I wanted people to figure it out so I could stop being scared.”

Connor tilts his head slightly but stays silent, watching the roads on the other side of the fence that borders campus. The sounds and lights of the city are always so much more noticeable at this time of day, when life on campus has slowed down enough for Connor to think freely. He watches automated cars zip past, imaging the happy little families travelling together, the people returning home from a long day of work, sitting patiently because they know there’s somebody waiting for them at home with open arms and room in their hearts for love.

It makes him sad to think about. Sad, and bitter that he can’t have that anymore, that there’s nobody for him to return to. He can’t go back to Amanda without facing the awkwardness and fragility of their unstable relationship, and his only past romantic relationship he left in shambles, burnt to ashes alongside his old identity. He can’t even entertain the idea of going back to…that.

His heartbeat picks up just thinking about it, and he forces himself to breathe evenly, the presence of the little orange bottle in his coat pocket all of a sudden very prominent in his mind. His hands curl unconsciously inwards, the sting of his nails biting into the palm of his left hand soothing the sudden anxious thoughts swarming him. He’s tempted to turn the lit end of his cigarette against his skin.

He curses himself inwardly. These moments are supposed to be calm, a well-needed escape from the chaotic mess of his daily life, and now he’s ruining it with his memories and his grief. It’s certainly not as bad as it can get—he remembers dimly the time he nearly overdosed in one of the shelters he was living in, simply because the thoughts just wouldn’t. go. away.—but it’s still…not great, the anxious feeling crawling under his skin and into his bloodstream. There’s too much to focus on, too little control over his fear, too little that he can understand. It’s frustrating and it’s difficult, and he wishes he had something stronger than the smoke in his lungs and the pills in his pockets.

He wishes—

_I wish I had him back. I wish I hadn’t disappointed him._

_~~He was bad for you.~~ _

_You don’t know what you’re talking about._

“There’ve always been weird deaths happening in this part of the city,” Gavin says suddenly, thankfully giving Connor something better to think about, “people just never care if it’s the shitty drug dealers and the poor people, y’know? If as many murders and suicides happened where all the rich people live as where we live, nobody would ever shut up about it. The police would be all over it, instead of ignoring it and saying it’s just a shitty tragedy or whatever it is they say.”

Connor furrows his brow, leaning further over the railing. He watches the dark clouds rolling over the sky, obscuring the orange-red glow of the setting sun through their blue-grey haze. The pollution in the atmosphere makes the colours more intense, more fiery behind the dark black smoke rising from the city. It’s oddly mesmerising. Picturesque, if you will. Something darkly poetic about it that Connor doesn’t care to decipher.

“That’s…actually what North wanted to see me about when she came to you last night.” He exhales another plume of smoke, “she gave me a binder full of files about a few of the abandoned murder cases that occurred over the past ten years or so.”

“What, she wants you to solve ‘em?”

Connor slowly shakes his head, “no. No, she wants me to bring attention to them. Josh asked me to write a column in his newspaper, and North suggested—she suggested that I research the cold cases and write about them.”

Gavin raises an eyebrow, “you gonna do it?”                                         

“I don’t know.”

He wants to make North and Josh happy, but he knows that having to read about all those deaths and murders and graphic descriptions of bodies probably _isn’t_ going to help him recover, no matter how interesting it may be.

“You don’t know?”

“I’d like to, but…” Connor exhales shakily, “it’s not…I’m not sure it would be good for me, at the moment. I’m not—I’m not at my best.”

“I dunno,” Gavin says, “judging by what happened this morning, I don’t think you can get much worse.”

It’s a joke. Connor nods absently, fingers curling around the metal railing.

“I think it’d be interesting to see, coming from you,” Gavin tells him, tearing his gaze away from the horizon to once again look Connor in the eyes, “you’d probably find some way to make all the death look beautiful or something. I mean, we’re all fucked in the head, here, but you’re…”

“Worse than most?”

He can hear the resignation in his voice. It’s a truth that he’s long grown accustomed to.

“I was gonna say _eccentric,_ but sure.” Gavin gives an amused huff, but it lacks its usual mirth. His eyes turn back to the sky, gaze growing cloudy. The scar running across his crooked nose twists slightly as he furrows his brow in thought, jagged pink lines marking his past struggles. “You wanna know what I think you should do?”

“Please.”

“I think you should do whatever the fuck is gonna make you happy,” Gavin says. “I think you spend way too much time thinking about what _other_ people will think about you, or what’ll happen to you in the future, thinking about all the fuckin’ possibilities in the world. Jesus, Connor, you never actually _relax_ , even when you’ve got a fuckin’ cigarette in your mouth and you’re waiting for the sun to go down, you’re always so goddamn tense. Like now, I’m as fucking relaxed as possible, but you’re sittin’ there, buzzing like an angry beehive.”

“I’m not—”

“Not to mention that you have absolutely no hobbies. At all. I don’t even know what you do when you’re not studying or talking to Simon. You need a fucking break from that shit, man. Something else to do.”

Connor sighs, head hanging between his shoulders. “It’s not…it’s not that easy.”

“It’s a fucking _hobby,_ Connor! What’s so hard about doing something fun for once?”

“The—I have a system,” Connor says, flicking ash off the end of his cigarette, “I can’t just break the system. There are too many variables.”

Gavin stares at him incredulously, “ _variables?_ It’s not a goddamn diamond heist! It’s—you—what the _fuck_ kind of variables could there be?”

“The kind of variables that—” He shakes his head, cutting himself off, “—it doesn’t matter. I’m just…I’m not very good at _relaxing._ ”

“So? This could be practice!” Gavin rolls his eyes, “you make everything so much harder for yourself, you know that?”

A pause. Connor takes a long drag of his cigarette, trying to calm his jittery nerves. He watches the smoke billow from his mouth into the air, barely visible in the dark of dusk.

“I’m aware,” Connor mutters. He watches a small group of people sprinting across campus, furrowing his brow as the faint sounds of their yelling drift up to him.

Gavin sighs, “just do it, man. I honestly don’t care, but you look and sound like you need a break, or at least something else to do.”

Connor nods silently, staring at the ground below. The wind starts to pick up again, tiny pinpricks of icy cold stinging Connor’s face and the exposed skin of his hands and wrists. He wonders if the rain will come back and force the two of them inside once again. There’s supposed to be a thunderstorm later in the night. Connor hopes there isn’t.

_You make everything so much harder for yourself._

There’s a reason, he knows, behind why he doesn’t let himself relax. Several reasons, if he has to be honest, but the biggest one being that he simply doesn’t deserve it. He doesn’t deserve to be free of his fear, far away from his past. He’s done terrible, terrible things, and if hell isn’t real and nobody else will condemn him to a life of misery, he will do it to himself, just to bring balance back to his world. Good things come to those who are good, and those who are bad like him deserve nothing but a painful existence leading to a painful death. It’s only fair, he supposes, that he’s the one to fuck everything up for himself. He fucked everything else up, so why not do it again to avenge everyone he hurt?

Simon would tell him to stop being so harsh.

But Simon isn’t here, so Connor can think whatever he wants.

He ignores the little voice in his head that tells him that sort of thinking is bad for him. What does it know? He’s the only one who can decide how terrible he is, and he’s the only one fit to punish himself for it. People like Simon and Josh, who always tell him he’s wrong when he says he’s a bad person, they don’t know anything about what he did. Simon only knows what Connor lets him know, he’s only aware of the milder parts, the little details that led to everything.

“Whoa, what’s going on down there?”

Connor’s head jerks up, gaze following Gavin’s finger, which is pointing at the other dorm block located on the opposite side of campus. It’s Josh and Markus’ block, the one closer to the Fine Arts section of the school.

A large gathering of people—probably hundreds, if not thousands—is swarming the outside of the building. The familiar sight of flashing blue and red lights bounce off the outer walls, lighting up in the rapidly falling darkness. An ambulance. Connor takes a step backwards, breath catching in his throat.

“The paramedics—what are they doing there?”

He blinks rapidly, a swell of anxious nausea already forming inside of him.

Gavin stares down at the scene. The orange-red light of his cigarette bobs in the hazy gloom.

“Fuck, something’s happened.” He turns to Connor, an expression of both curiosity and concern written over his features, “do we need to leave?”

“I—I don’t—” Connor stumbles over his words, staring at the flashing lights. His heart thuds in his ears, blood running fast and cold. “We should go. We should…we should go.”

Gavin nods. He snuffs out his cigarette and steps away from the railing, eyes wide. Blue and red reflect in his eyes. “That’s fucking insane, man. Fuckin’ hell, what’s going on? Jesus—fuck.”

He’s rambling as he opens the door to the rooftop with a jerky movement of his hand. Connor glances back at the lights of the ambulance, glad that he can’t hear the sounds of sirens from up on the roof. He watches for a moment longer before fleeing back to safety, following Gavin as he walks speedily back to their dorm, pretending not to be worried at all.

The vision of those blindingly bright lights and the faint memories of screaming follow him as he slips into bed only half an hour later. Gavin leaves their dorm to investigate, but Connor stays behind to protect himself. He lays in bed and stares up at the ceiling, hyper-aware of his heartbeat still pounding too fast in his chest. He closes his eyes and pretends that he’s not afraid, and he dreams of blood and death and the smell of rotting corpses.

In the morning, he almost forgets.

Almost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm getting into the plot quite early on this one, so I'm excited to share what I have planned with you all.
> 
> I don't wanna come off as needy, but please please please comment! Even if it's just a simple two words or something; it will definitely motivate me to write faster and improve. Kudos are also majorly appreciated, and thank you for reading anyway <3


	4. Have You Heard the News?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for this chapter: mentions of death/murder, speculations about how that death could have occurred (including speculations of suicide) mentions of cancer/illness, Connor's anxious inner dialogue
> 
>  
> 
> Mood music for this chapter: Secrets and Lies - Ruelle

_College Student Confirmed Dead_

_Last night, at approximately 6:00 in the evening, a young woman by the name of Mariah Walker was found dead in her dorm at Detroit’s one and only Savant School. She was found by her roommate, Chloe Perch, who stated that it looked as though Mariah had been deprived of oxygen._

_‘[Her] face was blue, and she was so cold to the touch,’ Chloe states, ‘I thought she’d been strangled at first, but there weren’t any marks on her neck or anything.’_

_An ambulance was called to the scene. Mariah was taken to the Detroit Receiving Hospital and announced dead at approximately 6:45 PM. Her body was transferred to a forensics coroner in hopes that the cause of death would be properly diagnosed. Her next in kin have been notified and are currently working with police to figure out what happened._

_Lieutenant Hank Anderson is the lead homicide detective from the DPD and was amongst the officers called to the scene when Mariah was found. His statement provides little information on what the police think could have happened, but foul play is still a viable theory._

_‘We can’t tell you anything other than the girl didn’t die of natural causes,’ Anderson states, ‘which means we can’t rule out foul play as of yet. This could easily have been a murder, just as easily as it could have been something else. I advise anybody in the area to be on the lookout for suspicious activity and report any findings to the police.’_

_The current headmaster of the school, Arthur Howes, was unavailable for comment._

_Mariah’s parents are organising a funeral as we speak. Her mother, Elise Walker, urges the other students of Detroit’s Savant School to stay safe and keep their friends close. Updates will come as soon as more details have been unveiled._

“So it was a death.”

Connor sighs shakily and closes the article on his laptop, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. Next to him, Josh nods.

“Markus and I heard the commotion outside,” he says, shaking his head, “I just thought it was a party or something until I heard the sirens. God, seeing her body being lifted into the ambulance…”

He trails off with a shudder. Connor can already feel the headache building behind his eyes, a dull pounding already settling between his temples. His heart hasn’t returned to its usual, slightly panicked pace since last night, and it doesn’t seem like it will calm down any time soon. After what happened to Mariah, he doesn’t know if he’ll ever stop being so edgy. Waking up this morning, he’d been bombarded with rumours and whisperings about what exactly had killed her, and it’s starting to fray his nerves.

“She was a nice girl,” Josh continues sadly, “always smiling at me in the hall whenever I passed her. A good artist, too. Markus liked to go out and paint with her and a couple of other people sometimes. She had a— _God,_ she had a picture of her little sister in her portfolio, a little sister she’ll never see again. I can’t…I can’t believe this.”

“It’s—these things aren’t supposed to happen here,” Simon adds. He looks out the window, a distant emotion in his gaze. “Nobody’s ever died like this on campus before.”

Connor stares down at his hands, “the police—they don’t know anything?”

“Nothing other than the fact that she didn’t just keel over,” Josh tells him. His eyes widen by a fraction, “Jesus, it could’ve been a murder. Somebody could have killed her in her own dorm, in her own _school._ They could have been another student! They—”

He seems to choke on his words, cupping his hands over his mouth.

“They could still be here,” Connor finishes quietly, “they might not even be finished.”

They were all thinking it.

“No,” Simon says, voice weak, “I refuse to believe it. I am not going to let that be a possibility. Nobody here would kill another human being. That’s—that’s just not right.”

Connor doesn’t know if that’s true. He’d met a lot of people who would have jumped at the chance, who would have been able to twist everybody’s perception just to justify it. He’d _lived_ with one of those people for five— for six years. He knows exactly how evil people can be, and how that evilness is multiplied if they believe they have a solid reason for it. Some of his scars—they definitely aren’t from a casual, everyday stabbing.

“You underestimate other people, Si,” Markus’ voice pipes up. Connor looks up and sees him standing in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest as he surveys the three of them. There’s dried green and yellow paint splattered on his hands and forearms. “You really think some of the people here wouldn’t kill out of revenge, or drunken stupidity, or just plain anger? Everybody who lives in this shithole is insane.”

Josh sighs, “Markus—”

“No, it’s true,” Markus says. He crosses the room to sit on the bed across from Connor and Josh, slinging an arm around Simon’s shoulders and holding him close.

“Look at them all, partying like animals, throwing stuff at each other, smoking on the roof.”

His mismatched eyes flick to Connor for a second. Connor shrinks under his gaze.

“That doesn’t mean they’re murderers,” Simon points out. He leans his head on Markus’ shoulder, “they’re just idiots. The two aren’t mutually inclusive.”

Josh nods, “yeah, there’s plenty of idiots around that could never kill anybody. Take North, for example. A total dumbass, yes, but she’d never murder anybody.”

“That’s because she’s somebody like us,” Markus tells him, “because she’s intelligent enough not to kill anybody. Whether it’s because she’s a good person, or just because she doesn’t want the consequences, it doesn’t matter. She’s just smart enough not to kill, or at least smart enough not to get caught.”

Connor furrows his brow, tilting his head to the side.

“People like us are few and far between, here,” Markus shakes his head. There’s an unidentifiable emotion in his eyes, something dull and barely there, “it’s a wonder _we’re_ still alive, with people like Gavin Reed around us all the time.”

Connor winces, “Gavin’s fine,” he mumbles, fidgeting with his hands.

Josh looks at him, then glances at Markus, “yeah, Gavin’s fine. I don’t think he’d ever be one to kill somebody.”

Silence for too long.

“Of course not!” Markus says, blinking in confusion, “I wasn’t—God, I wasn’t saying Gavin killed Mariah. That would be terrible! I was just saying that he’s kind of…a bad influence? Something like that? You know I’m not good with words.”

He trails off with a chuckle.

“Besides, I’m sure we’d know if he was dangerous. Connor’s living with him, and Connor would definitely be able to tell.”

Whether that’s a dig at Connor’s paranoia and anxiety or just a true statement, he can’t tell. He can never tell, with Markus. It’s worrying.

“Nobody knows if it was actually a murder, and it’s not really our place to say,” Simon shudders, “we don’t need to start speculating yet. All we need to do is help out Mariah’s family, right?”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Markus exhales sadly, “it’s terrible, but we’ll find out what happened soon enough. I heard that Chloe was—she was going to set up a donation for Mariah’s parents because they don’t have enough money for the proper ceremony they want to give her.”

Josh rests his head on his knees, eyeing Markus sideways.

“I still can’t believe it,” he murmurs, “this sort of stuff only happens in movies. I never actually thought I’d live to see the day that somebody died in my own building.”

“It happens all the time,” Connor says, voice quiet. “We—we just never see it.”

“People are already starting to spread rumours,” Simon shakes his head, “I heard somebody say she was poisoned, and somebody else claimed she—claimed that she overdosed.”

Connor doesn’t miss the careful glance that Simon gives him, the softening of his eyes. He shivers and looks away.

“God, I hope not,” Josh says, “that’s…that’s terrible. I can’t believe people are already saying stuff like that. It only happened—Jesus, like fifteen hours ago.”

“People will always gossip,” Markus tells him, “it’s human nature. Shitty human nature, but nature all the same. I just hope they realise how inappropriate it is before things get out of hand. I don’t want to have to deal with a repeat of those rumours about—I just don’t want to deal with rumours again, not after what happened last time.”

Simon and Josh hum in agreement.

They drift into silence. Connor turns his gaze to the window, watching the small number of people that are actually awake making their ways across campus. The sun has disappeared once again, hidden by dark grey clouds and pollution. It’s raining lightly, but even that doesn’t take away from how hazy and dry the atmosphere seems. Connor wonders how long humanity has left, how long until the Earth burns down to ash. He hopes—he wonders if it’ll be soon.

He remembers when he was younger, staring up at the sky with his brothers. They would always point up at the clouds and try to find shapes and animals, giggling whenever they found one that looked particularly strange or resembled a pug. He remembers Niles lifting him up in the air so he could see clearer, and Callum complaining because it wasn’t fair that Niles carried _Connor_ around, but he had to walk like everybody else. He remembers Amanda always calling them inside because it was getting too cold outside, and then they’d have dinner like a proper family.

It’s funny. For the first fourteen years of his life, Connor had been miserable, but everybody around him had been normal. _Life_ had been normal. He had a family, two brothers and a loving mother, and yet he had never been satisfied. He was safe, but he was slowly cracking under the pressure to keep up appearances. As soon as he came out, as soon as he decided enough was enough, _that_ was when the world around him started to crumble. That was when he knew he needed to get away, far away from the chaos he’d caused.

Then everything happened with his—then everything else happened, and Connor had realised that the world would never go back. He remembers those nights spent in the shelters, hiding away from the daylight and the other people, hiding because he was too afraid to see what kind of ruined world he would return to. He hid back then, and he still hides now, still keeps himself locked away from the people he misses most. He builds walls around his mind and locks his emotions deep inside of him, trying and failing to ignore them.

Despite it all, things were almost back to normal. He’d found his friends, settled into a new rhythm, finally believed that he was getting better. He’d finally been as close to happy as he’d been for…eleven years. He and Simon kept in touch, found each other again in the school, and it made Connor feel as though his luck was finally starting to turn. He felt as though he’d managed to duct-tape the world back together, hide the cracks away under his denial.

Now, though, somebody’s dead, and Connor can already feel the cracks poking through his messy job of fixing everything. Now, though, memories of rumours that spiralled out of control are flooding back, memories of police and hospitals and the concerned faces of his friends. It’s frustrating, frustrating that he’d actually believed that things were getting better, frustrating that now he knows it was a fantasy. Things never get better for people like him. Things are never fixed, or covered up. He knew it back then, and he knows it now. It was stupid for him to ever believe everything would be fixed eventually.

A muffled phone jingle brings him out of his thoughts. Markus pulls his phone out of his pocket, an unreadable expression flittering over his face.

“Chloe wants to talk to me,” he announces, breaking the unsteady silence. “I should probably go make sure she’s okay.”

He stands slowly, and Josh stands with him.

“Mind if I come?” Josh tilts his head, eyes downcast, “I want to be able to help her.”

Markus nods, but Connor notices the tension that lines his posture, “yeah, yeah, that’s fine. I’m sure Chloe will appreciate it.” He turns to Simon, “I’ll see you later, Si. Still want to give you that present.”

“Bye, Markus,” Simon says, leaning in for a kiss before they leave. Connor sees Josh roll his eyes.

Josh nods to Connor before following Markus out of the room, still murmuring under his breath about how insane the situation is. The door clicks closed after them, and Simon moves to sit next to Connor, pressing close to him.

For a few seconds, there’s silence. Connor stares down at his hands and fidgets with a loose thread in his sweater. He can feel Simon’s intense gaze boring through him, unspoken questions lingering in the air between them.

“Are you okay?” Simon asks, voice soft, “you look pale.”

Connor nods absently, not meeting his gaze, “I’m fine. It’s just…a lot to process.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Simon says with a bitter chuckle. He sighs and shakes his head, “but I feel like we don’t have to process it. As bad as it sounds, this doesn’t have to affect us. Sure, it was terrible, and nobody should ever have to go through that, but we don’t have to be affected.”

“You always say these things, but I never know how to not be affected,” Connor murmurs, closing his eyes for a moment, “it shouldn’t affect me, you’re right, I—”

Simon puts a hand on his shoulder, cutting him off, “I never said you _shouldn’t_ be affected. I know that you’re gonna be affected, and you have every right to be, but even though it _affects_ you, you don’t have to let it take over your life like everyone else is already doing.”

He sighs.

“The police haven’t even said anything about it definitely being a murder, and yet everybody’s blowing it out of proportion and saying that Mariah was killed. You don’t have to be one of those people, and I don’t think it would be good for you if you were.”

Connor exhales shakily, “you sound like my therapist.”

Simon laughs, “good! You always need a voice of reason in your life. If that voice has to be me, then so be it.”

“You’ve always been my voice of reason,” Connor says. He folds when Simon slings an arm across his shoulders, leaning into him, “that hasn’t changed.”

“True,” Simon smiles gently, “that’s always been our dynamic, hasn’t it? You’re the over-thinker, I’m the go-with-the-flow kind of person. Nothing’s changed that much when you think about it.”

Connor can name several things that have changed, but he doesn’t.

“I feel like we never get a chance to talk, just the two of us,” Simon muses aloud, “we’ve always got somebody else with us. It makes it hard to catch up on things.”

“I suppose that’s true,” Connor says, “but there’s not much to catch up on, really. I’m still a mess, you’re still stuck with me, I still can’t talk to Markus alone because he terrifies me.”

“You’re not terrified of Markus,” Simon tells him fondly, “you’re just not compatible with his personality, and that’s fine. I’m also not stuck with you in the slightest. I choose to be your friend because that’s what I am, and I really like you.”

“Nothing to say about me being a mess?”

“Well, I can’t deny the truth of the matter,” Simon chuckles, “but you _have_ been getting better. I’ve noticed. We haven’t spoken about what happened for…how long has it been? Nine months? Ten? Either way, we haven’t actually needed to talk about it, and that’s progress.”

Connor both appreciates and fears Simon’s bluntness when it comes to this certain topic. Fears it, because he never knows when just hearing a name or a description could trigger something terrible, make him relive it all. Appreciates it, because he’s sick of people coddling him and tip-toeing around him just because they don’t think he’s strong enough to face the truth.

He’s not, of course, but that’s neither here nor there.

“So, while we’re on-topic, is there anything you need to say?” Simon’s voice turns serious for a moment, his eyes searching Connor’s face, “anything you need to get off your chest?”

Connor thinks for a moment, fidgeting anxiously with his hands.

“No,” he lies with a shake of his head, “no, I’m okay. I—I’m fine.”

He doesn’t feel the need to mention the nightmares or the flashback from yesterday. It’s all in the past.

Simon scrutinises him for a moment longer, obviously not believing him. After a few tense seconds, Simon nods begrudgingly, patting him on the arm.

“Okay,” Simon tells him, “okay, that’s good. That’s great, actually! Not that I don’t love our chats, but it’s nice to talk about something that isn’t sad.”

Connor nods. He glances out the window again and finds it raining outside.

“Speaking of happy things,” Simon says, grinning, “my little sister’s cancer is gone! Like, one-hundred percent gone! She’s coming to visit us here for my birthday next week!”

Emma Phillips. Simon’s younger sister. She’d been diagnosed with an unstable type of blood cancer as an infant, and Simon’s parents had spent all their money on trying to get her better. They’d ended up having to move her to a hospital at Ann Arbor, almost going broke in the process. It’s why Simon’s at the Savant School instead of a school for normal, emotionally and financially stable people.

“That’s great, Si,” Connor smiles despite himself, “I miss Emma. She was fun.”

“I know, right?” Simon laughs, “and now she’s better, and I’m gonna see her again. She called me on mom’s phone and started talking about all the things she wants to see when they’re back in Detroit. She also told me she’s excited to see you, too. She said, and I quote, ‘I wanna see if Connor finished shapeshifting yet!’”

Connor ducks his head to hide his grin. He remembers, after he’d first come out to his friends, Simon told Emma that Connor changed his name because he was like a butterfly, and he needed to shapeshift into his final form, which happened to be male. Emma had only been around three years old when it happened, and although she knows that Connor is transgender now, she still refers to it as shapeshifting.

“How old is she now?” Connor asks. “I still remember her being tiny.”

“She’s eleven! I still can’t believe it. She’s getting so old, Connor! It makes _me_ feel old!” Simon shakes his head.

“You’re twenty-three.”

“Exactly! I’m _ancient!_ ”

Connor laughs quietly. He feels strangely at-ease, despite the tragedy of Mariah’s death and the recurring nightmares. Simon just has that effect on him, he supposes. It reminds him of better times, when they were carefree children, when nothing had happened to tear their families apart. Even though there’s poison tainting most of his memories of Before, he still remembers Simon always being a bright light in the darkness. Nothing could ever change that.

“Emma makes art now,” Simon says, “she spends hours and hours on these drawings that she does. It’s actually kind of amazing how talented she is. She told me she wanted to draw a picture of you and me together.”

“That’s cute.”

“It really is, isn’t it?” Simon smiles, then his gaze turns sly, “you talk to your siblings yet?”

Connor sighs slowly, heavily, resting his chin on his hands. “No.”

“You really should,” Simon tells him, exasperated, “I’m sure they miss you as much as you miss them.”

“Niles, probably. Callum? No way.” Connor shakes his head, “besides, it’s awkward, you know? I left home when I was fifteen. They haven’t seen me since. I don’t think they’d be—I don’t think they’d be expecting…all this.”

He gestures at himself bitterly, huffing a breath.

“Anyway, I don’t even know how I’d get in touch with them. Amanda sends me money on my birthday, and that’s about it. Niles used to try to reach me, then I neglected him until he stopped trying. Callum hates me,” he smiles ruefully, “either way, I don’t even know if I want to. My family is stubborn.”

“Obviously I know where you get it from, then,” Simon says, nudging his shoulder, “but it’s fine. If you don’t want to meet with your flesh and blood, you can meet with mine. They love you! I think sometimes they want you to be their son.”

Connor smiles, “your mom makes good food.”

“Mmm, yes,” Simon closes his eyes, “I’m looking forward to seeing her just for the birthday cake she’s undoubtedly made for me.”

Connor opens his mouth to reply, but he’s interrupted by his phone buzzing in his pocket. He takes it out and is met with a text from Gavin. Strange in itself, because Gavin never texts anybody, but even stranger when he sees the message attached.

 

**_Gavin phcking Reed:_ ** _‘Come 2 dorm NOW. Things r happening’_

He blinks down at the screen.

“Gavin says I need to be back at our dorm,” he tells Simon, “you want to walk me back?”

Simon grins, “sure.”

 

\---   ---   ---   ---

 

“Here we are,” Simon announces as they reach Connor’s dorm, “sad to see you go. We should catch up like that more often. Just talk about nothing and ignore all our sad things for a while.”

Connor hums his agreement, “yeah, that would be nice.”

He stares at the door for a second longer, his hand hovering over the doorknob, then turns back to Simon and crushes him in a hug.

“Thank you,” he mumbles into Simon’s shoulder, eyes squeezed shut.

Simon wraps his arms around Connor’s torso tightly. Connor can feel him breathe. He’s warm.

“You’re welcome,” Simon says fondly, “I really do enjoy it. You know that, right?”

Connor nods, sighing shakily as he pulls away. He likes the gentle affection in Simon’s eyes, the way he laughs as Connor steps back. He lingers behind him, not leaving until Connor goes inside.

Connor places his hand on the doorknob and turns it, opening the door with a slight creak.

The light is on. There are two people in the room. It’s not that strange. Gavin usually has friends over when he’s not in class or smoking or drinking until he passes out.

Connor looks up.

Gavin is on his bed. He looks…worried? That’s a little strange, but no stranger than the message he’d sent.

Then, the other person turns around.

Icy blue eyes meet his gaze, a sharp face framed by stubble and blond hair glaring back at him. A police badge rests on the mystery man’s belt.

“Connor Stern? I need to ask you a few questions.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Insert Law & Order dun dun sound]
> 
> Shitty chapter is shitty. I apologise.  
> But hey, the plot is coming up, right? Mr Bear Daddy has appeared, right? That makes everything better.
> 
> Once again, please comment! It makes me want to torture Connor even more! Thank you for reading and leaving your kudos


	5. Suspicious

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for this chapter: a buildup of anxiety that ends up causing an anxiety attack, slightly manipulative behaviours from a police officer, brief mention of past transphobia dealt by a police officer, lots of memories regarding traumatic experiences, Connor's anxious inner-dialogue, self-hatred, self-blame, mysteries, discussion of death/murder,
> 
>  
> 
> Mood music for this chapter: Mirrors - Arrested Youth

Any semblance of calmness is thrown out the window as Connor meets the stranger’s gaze. He can already feel his breathing spiralling out of control, already hears his heartbeat begin to pound in his ears.

The man looks to be in his late-thirties or early-forties. He has sharp features and a permanent-looking scowl that makes ice spread through Connor’s veins. His hair is blond, cut short and neat, and there are hints of stubble on his chin. He has broad shoulders, and he’s probably a head or two taller than Connor.

That’s not what’s intimidating about him, however. The most terrifying part of him are his eyes, the icy blue that seems to pierce Connor’s skin and stare straight into his mind, reading every thought he’d ever had.

Simon steps forward to stand next to him. It helps, for a moment, and then he’s panicking, wondering what’s going on.

“You need—you need to ask me a few questions,” Connor repeats, struggling to keep his voice even. He feels Simon’s arm brush his own.

“That’s what I said, kid.”

The police officer—he’s a police officer, Connor reminds himself somewhat deliriously—his voice is rough, gruffer than Connor had expected. Connor shifts under his gaze, feeling small and weak and incapable of anything. He wants something to hold in his hands, something to distract himself from the stranger’s scrutiny. He wants to run away, or maybe pull his hair out, but that would be bad, so he opts to just stand still, staring dumbly forwards.

Suddenly, he’s back in an interrogation room, reporting a crime that should have been reported a long time ago. He remembers the blaring white lights and the mirror reflecting his fearful face right back at him. He remembers the officer taking his statement using his birthname because him being male was against the officer’s religion. He remembers being too ashamed to go through with it, in the end, instead staying silent for the rest of his life, holding little secrets inside of him that should never see the light of day. He remembers hating himself then, and knows that he still hates himself for it to this day. He should have been stronger, shouldn’t have let the officer taking his statement get to him in such a way.

“Who are you?” The officer asks Simon, who takes Connor’s arm as they enter the room.

“Simon Phillips, sir,” he sounds confident. Connor doesn’t know how he manages.

When the officer gestures at Connor to sit down on his bed, he does so warily, knowing that he probably looks pitiful and afraid, like some sort of dying wild animal. Simon follows suit, obviously not going to leave Connor’s side until he knows it’s safe. Connor appreciates it. He looks at Gavin, questioning.

“With all due _respect_ , I already answered my questions,” Gavin says. He doesn’t sound very respectful. “Soooo, can I go? I’ve got a par—I’ve got a study session to go to.”

“I’d rather have a couple witnesses to the questioning,” the officer says, voice cold. Connor shrinks away, even though he’s not the one being spoken to. “So if you don’t _mind_ , Mister Reed, you’ll be staying here until I have what I need.”

Gavin sighs, rolls his eyes, but he nods, stretching out with an exaggerated yawn. He winks at Connor behind the officer’s back, and Connor tries to force himself to relax.

The officer stands in front of Connor, broad and tall and intimidating. Connor can feel the waves of protectiveness radiating off of Simon, who shuffles slightly closer next to him on the bed.

“I’m Lieutenant Hank Anderson from the DPD,” the officer—the _lieutenant_ says. “I’m currently investigating Mariah Walker’s death.”

“I thought you didn’t know it was a murder,” Gavin pipes up unhelpfully. Lieutenant Anderson glares up at him.

“We don’t.” Anderson snaps, “I’m following up on a lead.”

“That lead being what exactly?” Simon asks. There’s something defensive in his voice. He sounds disbelieving.

The lieutenant narrows his eyes, “an anonymous source informed me that they saw somebody matching Connor’s description leaving the victim’s dorm before she was found dead.”

Connor doesn’t want to hear the next sentence.

“I’ve gotta make sure your friend here isn’t a murderer.”

Connor stares at him, not totally comprehending anything he just heard. He hadn’t even known Mariah, had he? Chloe, he knew, but he wasn’t friends with her. He’d never been to her dorm before in his life. His heartbeat picks up, and his breath hitches in his throat. Is he a suspect? Do the police think he killed somebody? How would they know? How would _he_ know if he’d killed somebody?

Right, right, he’d know because he was there.

He forces himself to take a deep breath and opens his mouth to speak.

“I’m a suspect?” He hates how small his voice sounds, how weak he looks underneath the lieutenant’s cold gaze.

“Yep.” Anderson says, popping the ‘p’ loudly. He flips open his notebook and perches himself on the edge of Gavin’s desk, much to Reed’s dismay. “So, I need to know exactly where you were when the girl died. Approximately six o’clock last night.”

Connor hesitates, wringing his hands. He knows that Gavin had answered questions, and he and Gavin had been on the roof doing something that they shouldn’t have when the ambulance arrived. Connor doesn’t know whether Gavin would have told the truth about them smoking or not. He doesn’t know if _he_ should tell the truth and risk getting them both expelled, or if he _should_ tell the truth and hope that his story lines up with Gavin’s enough to not make Anderson suspicious. If he and Gavin don’t say the same things, then they could make themselves _both_ suspects, and Connor doesn’t want Gavin to be in trouble because of him. That would be a terrible thing for him, a terrible person, to do. He has to choose carefully, has to try and stop himself from making Anderson suspicious. He has to—

_Focus! You have to focus!_

“I…” Connor shies away from the lieutenant’s intense stare. He chooses to tell half of the truth and hopes that it doesn’t hurt anybody. “I was on the roof.”

“You were on the roof,” Anderson repeats on deadpan. “Elaborate.”

_He knows you’re lying. He’ll put you in jail._

Connor blinks slowly, trying to calm his nerves, “um, I was reading. It’s quieter on the roof than in here, and the sunset was nice to watch.”

Anderson quirks an eyebrow and scribbles something down in his notebook. Connor doesn’t know if it’s a good sign or a bad sign. He tells himself that he _should_ know. He’s a criminology student, he should know how this needs to go, but all he can think about is the fear in his chest and the terrifying reality of his situation. He’s a suspect in a case that might be a murder, and he doesn’t know how.

“Okay. Were you alone?”

Connor tries to contain his anxiety, which is hard because he feels as though it’s pouring out of him in waves. He looks at Gavin, trying his best to seem nonchalant. Gavin nods, the movement so slight that Connor almost misses it.

“No—No, I was with Gavin,” Connor tells him. He tries to keep his voice from shaking.

“Okay, okay,” Anderson says. He nods thoughtfully, “were you close with the victim? Did you know her?”

“No,” Connor says, shaking his head jerkily, “I didn’t know who she was until earlier today, when I saw the—the, um, announcement.”

“You didn’t know her? What about her roommate?”

“Chloe? We’re just acquaintances. I never really—I never really speak to her.” Connor shrugs, attempting to disguise his fear. “She’s a friend of a friend, I suppose.”

Anderson is silent for a few moments. Connor waits tensely for him to speak again, feels Simon glaring the lieutenant down beside him.

Anderson stands up off of Gavin’s desk and moves to Connor’s side of the room.

“This is your stuff, yeah?” Anderson voices, fingers drumming on the surface of Connor’s desk. He glances back at Connor, expression unreadable. “Mind if I take a look?”

It’s worded as a request, but Connor knows he doesn’t have a choice in the matter. He nods silently, listening to his own rapid heartbeat and wincing. Next to him, Simon stiffens.

“Is that procedure?” Simon asks, defensive on Connor’s behalf. “Should we be worried?”

“I asked permission, and he gave it,” Anderson tells him snappishly, “I doubt you need to be worried, unless there’s something you’re hiding here.”

Simon deflates and nods, but he doesn’t take his gaze off the lieutenant as he moves on.

Anderson is meticulous in his search, moving slowly from one thing to another. He opens Connor’s bedside drawer and rummages around in it.

Connor’s heart sinks as Anderson picks up the bottle of his anxiety medication, eyes flicking over the label curiously. He feels himself shrink away as Anderson picks up a slip of paper that Connor recognises as his testosterone prescription, fighting the urge to run out of the room. He feels Simon put a hand on his shoulder, feels his face burning in mortification. He tells himself that he’s not ashamed, but he knows it isn’t true in the slightest.

Thankfully, Anderson places both items back down and closes the drawer without a word of acknowledgement, not even glancing in Connor’s direction. Connor allows himself to breathe again, relaxing his shoulders almost immediately.

Anderson moves on to his desk, flicking through several unfinished documents and giving Connor’s computer a once-over. He picks up the blue binder that North had given Connor yesterday and opens it. Something passes over his gaze for a moment, and Connor winces.

“What’s this?” Anderson asks, suspicion lining his voice.

Connor blinks, “research,” he says, voice barely a whisper.

“Research for what, kid?”

_A murder, perhaps?_

“I, um, I study criminology,” Connor tells him, “I wanted to research old cold cases. They’re very interesting.”

“A lot of these bodies exhibit the same symptoms that Mariah’s did,” Anderson says as he peruses the folder. His voice is cruelly nonchalant, “blueish skin, bloodshot eyes, the typical symptoms of overdose.”

Connor flinches, “I know it looks bad—”

“Now, why would it look bad?” Anderson muses aloud, “you just said it was only research. A criminology student such as yourself _should_ be interested in these things. But if you think I need to be suspicious…”

He trails off. Connor doesn’t know what to do. He wrings his hands anxiously and fights the terror rising in his throat. He wonders if he’ll be convicted of a crime he didn’t commit. He wonders if he’ll be put in the same jail he tried to send The Monster to. His breathing picks up, rattling in his hollow chest as he attempts to contain the fear. He doesn’t want the lieutenant to see him panic, doesn’t want to know what it would do to him.

Anderson turns to Simon and Gavin, “if you don’t mind, gentlemen, I’d like to have a little chat with Connor. Alone.” He gestures at the door, which is still slightly ajar. Connor wonders whether anybody had been eavesdropping on them. It certainly seems like something his the people on his floor would do.

“Now wait a second,” Simon starts, but is cut off by Gavin pulling him forcefully by the arm, muttering something under his breath that Connor doesn’t catch. Simon gives Connor a sympathetic look, which is also tinged with worry, but he follows Gavin silently from the room, closing the door behind him.

Connor looks everywhere except Anderson’s face. He feels fear clawing at his abdomen, trying to escape through his mouth and his eyes. He won’t let it, not until Anderson and his scarily captivating eyes and his gruff voice are far gone. Then, he’ll probably crawl into a dark hole and die there waiting for somebody to find him. He finds solace in the fact that once this is over he’ll be able to panic freely, feel the things he needs to feel.

“Mister Phillips is…protective of you,” Anderson says, unexpectedly. Connor looks up at him for a fleeting moment before ducking his gaze away again, nodding uncertainly.

“Y-Yes, we…we’ve been friends for a long time,” Connor tells him quietly, fidgeting with the hem of his shirt.

‘Friends’ is an understatement. Simon has seen Connor at his absolute worst. Simon has expressed his concern about Connor being on his own several times, which is why Connor had been settled with Gavin in the first place. Simon is Connor’s only support in a world that wants him dead, and in return, Connor does…what, exactly?

“Your roof story lines up with Reed’s,” Anderson tells him. Something in his voice sounds begrudging, as though he hadn’t wanted it to be real. At Connor’s sigh of relief, he continues, “but that doesn’t mean you didn’t do anything. These files could end up being proof, you know that?”

Connor nods. “I—I’m aware.”

“So, you gonna tell me what you were actually doing with those cold cases?” Anderson asks. He once again props himself up on Gavin’s desk, watching Connor expectantly. “I know for sure that most of those cases aren’t known well enough for the general public to get their hands on. A lot of fuckin’ work just for some research, if you ask me. Where’d you get ‘em?”

Connor takes a shaky breath, suddenly feeling the itch and agitation of a nicotine craving. His hands curl into his sides, and he squeezes until his knuckles go white.

_You should have asked North. You shouldn’t have just let her throw them at you. Now you’re a suspect, and it’s all your fault._

“My friend, North. She—She gave them to me. I don’t know where she got them from. She just said she went to the library.”

Anderson looks disbelieving, but he nods anyway, jotting something down in his notebook. Connor hopes it’s not something terrible.

“For what purpose? It sure as hell wasn’t studying, kid.”

“Um,” Connor hesitates anxiously, “my friends wanted me to write about them in Josh’s newspaper. They thought—they thought it would be good for me.”

“You were going to write about them,” Anderson repeats, thoughtful. “Why?”

Connor blinks, “I wanted to—I wanted to explore why they were abandoned,” he says.

Anderson doesn’t look like he believes him. Connor shrinks away from him, wishing he could reach over to his cabinet and take out his anxiety meds. His heart is pounding too fast and too shallow, breath barely moving his chest. He wonders if he looks as fucked up as he feels on the inside, wonders if his anxiety is making everything worse, if it’s making him even more suspicious.

“Can you tell me which dorm your friend North lives in?” Anderson questions gruffly, squinting down at his notes. “These cases shouldn’t be available to the public, especially not in as much detail as they are here. If what you say is true, then your friend has been sneaking around.”

He pointedly taps the outside of the binder, giving Connor another suspicious once-over.

“She lives in the other building, on the—the fourth floor. In room 412. Can I go now?” Connor flinches when Anderson drops the binder back down on the desk heavily. He represses a shiver as Anderson steps towards him, looming over him like a skyscraper.

“Listen, kid,”  Anderson says, voice low. Connor tries his best not to remember where he’d heard this type of tone before. “This could be a serious crime. We don’t know it’s murder, but what we do know is that _you_ were seen outside the victim’s dorm before she was found.”

“I understand, sir, but how do you know for sure it was me?” Connor pauses for a second before continuing, voice quiet, “…I’m not exactly _unique_.”

“The claim specified you by name,” Anderson tells him roughly, obviously annoyed, “unless you’ve got a twin with the same name as you, you were the person seen.”

It’s bizarre, yes. Who would have bothered to report him in the first place? It’s not like Connor leaves his dorm enough to have enemies that would want to frame him for murder. A red light blares in the front of his mind, telling him that something’s not right. Something’s definitely going on, but he can’t focus on that right now.

“I swear I wasn’t there,” Connor says, alarm bells ringing, “I don’t know who said I was, but they were mistaken. Please, you have to believe me. I could never—I could never kill somebody.”

Anderson crosses his arms over his chest, which causes his jacket to draw back enough to reveal the gun in his holster. Whether it’s an intentional intimidation tactic or just a coincidence, it doesn’t matter. Connor stares at the weapon, trying his best to repress the memories threatening to flood him.

There’s silence for a few moments. Anderson’s gaze flicks over Connor’s body, probably reading his body language as being defensive instead of terrified. Connor doesn’t once meet the lieutenant’s piercing gaze, instead staring at the carpeted floor, looking for stains and imperfections while he waits for the torturous silence to be over. It’s worse than being interrogated. Tension lines Connor’s body. He can feel his fear pulsing through him with each beat of his heart, he can hear faint murmuring from outside the room. He hopes it’s Simon and not some stranger eavesdropping on them.

“Well, this shit got me nowhere,” Anderson says finally. He looks angry. “I can’t wait to tell the captain that our only lead on this case turned out to be an anxiously vibrating midget.”

Connor isn’t sure if he was meant to hear that last part, but it stings nonetheless. He curls in on himself further, fingers digging into his arms hard enough that he can feel the bite of his fingernails through the thick wool of his sweater.

Anderson picks up the blue binder again, “I’m gonna go ahead and confiscate this. I don’t care how you got it, or why you have it, it’s mine now, and I’m gonna let you off with a word of caution. Maybe don’t mess around with shit you shouldn’t have, hmm?”

Connor nods wordlessly, claws of shame crawling up his shoulders. He should have known better. He should have _been_ better. Nobody wants to believe him. Nobody wants to believe him because he’s bad, he’s terrible he doesn’t deserve to be here anymore he should have died four years ago but he didn’t and somebody else did instead of him because he was a coward he deserved to die he shouldn’t have called an ambulance it was stupid everybody would be better off without him and and and—

“Here’s my fuckin’ card,” Anderson says suddenly, holding out a slip of white cardboard with a contact number written on it, “if you decide to confess anything, call that number. Don’t bother goin’ to the cops, we both know you couldn’t take it.”

Connor nods again, taking the card between shaking fingers, mortified at being called out. The lieutenant watches him, still looking mildly suspicious—or maybe that’s just his _face._ It’s hard to focus when there’s terror blurring the edges of his vision and there are memories whispering in his ears that he should be _dead_ and he shouldn’t have come back. He wants—he needs Simon to come back. He needs something to ground him, something to fix him before he breaks any further.

“Good fuckin’ riddance,” Anderson mutters, turning to leave. Connor watches him go, staring after him dumbly as he opens the door and leaves it ajar behind him. There’s a sound rushing in his ears, something pounding in his chest. He reaches out for Simon but Simon isn’t there he’s alone he’s alone he’s alone there’s nothing to help him nothing can help him he’s falling he’s falling—

Distantly, he hears somebody muttering a curse.

He can’t breathe. He can’t _breathe._ His hands fly up to his throat, trying to tear off the rope constricting his airway, but he can’t touch it. It burns it burns it burns. There are gunshots ricocheting around him because he made his boyfriend angry and he should have been smarter he should have known better. The room goes dark, his chest burns. Lights flash past the windows, bright and red and blue, blinding him and searing through his head, his chest. Something is breaking, something has stopped working inside of him. The rope twists and pulls at his neck, tightening around him until he’s sure his hands and feet are blue, blue like the lights blue like the blood blue like the death—

_Blue._

“Connor, it’s okay,” Simon’s voice. Simon’s voice. “It’s okay.”

Something warm wraps itself around his hands, touching them to something that’s moving, beating, a rhythmical pulse beneath his palms.

“You feel that? That’s my heartbeat, yeah? I need you to listen to it, just listen to it and breathe, okay? You’re safe, you’re safe.”

He shakes his head because he doesn’t _feel_ safe. There’s a bright, white-hot fear shooting through him, lighting every nerve ending on fire and sending him spiralling out of control. He’s falling down a hole and he can’t get up, can’t call out for help because of the rope around his neck. It’s unbearable, the panic constricting his chest, the deafening thunder in his ears. He can barely hear Simon’s voice over it all, barely able to make out the words and translate them into something with meaning. It all sounds like gibberish.

Simon’s voice keeps saying things, telling him to breathe, telling him that he’s safe and he doesn’t need to be afraid. He knows he doesn’t need to be afraid, and that’s the problem. He’s useless. Useless.

It seems to last an entire eternity before he can think properly. Gradually, the loud pounding in his ears recedes and he can breathe once again, gasping for air as he comes back to himself—but not entirely. His mind fades back just enough to let him occupy that numb space he always goes to after an anxiety attack, a feeling of cool detachment filling him as he straightens up.

“Sorry,” Connor says dully, scrubbing at his face to rid it of the tears that managed to escape his traitorous eyes, “I’m sorry.”

He looks up to see Simon shake his head.

“You don’t need to apologise,” Simon tells him, voice soft, fond. Behind him, Gavin watches Connor warily, something unidentifiable in his eyes. “It’s not your fault.”

Connor sighs shakily, smoothing down the front of his sweater. He has the sudden urge to sleep for seven years. It always happens like this. He’ll panic for upwards of ten to thirty minutes and then he’ll collapse on his bed to have nightmares about pain and darkness. His mind is a cruel, cruel device, one that he’s pretty sure was given to him by some superior lifeform to gauge how much suffering a single human can take.

“That cop was a fuckin’ bitch,” Gavin says. He crosses his arms over his chest. “What’d he say to you?”

“He—he said…” Connor blinks, trying his best to organise his thoughts and his memories, “he told me the person who reported me didn’t only give a description,” he says quietly, waiting for the shaking in his hands and legs to stop.

“What else did they give?” Simon’s eyes widen fractionally.

“My name.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HOOBOY I don't know how I managed to finish this within four days but. I did it. In case you were wondering: yes, Hank is younger in this fic than he is in the game, around 37/38 years old. He looks older than that because of ~depression~ and ~unhealthy coping~
> 
> A big thank you to everybody who's been supporting this mess of self-indulgence so far! Your comments, kudos, and bookmarks fuel me!


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